Weekend Hot Topic, part 2: A sequel too far

Readers reveal the exact point they gave up on a favourite franchise and what series like Assassin’s Creed and Resident Evil can do to win back fans.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 – has the franchise lost its way?

The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Gadfly, who asked if there’s ever been a point where you’ve given up on a long-running series of games and realised the franchise no longer interests you. Was the reason you gave up because the game itself was no good or was it simply because there’d been too many similar games released too close to each other?

Although it wasn’t hard to predict some of the answers it was interesting that even well-regarded series such as Gran Turismo and Mario Kart had run their course as far as some people were concerned, with an excess of quantity rather than an absence of quality being the main problem.

Truly final fantasy
For me Final Fantasy XIII-2 was just as much as I can take. I think anyone, even the keenest fan, would admit it’s been going downhill for the best part of a decade but XIII-2 was just horrible on every level. A story that made zero sense and was almost impossible to follow, dialogue that hurt your ears it was so bad, absolutely hateful characters I’d love to see in a torture porn spin-off, terrible voice acting, and gameplay so pathetically shallow I can hardly believe it is a real Final Fantasy.

Games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Ni No Kuni show that that the Japanese role-player is far from dead, all it needs is to someone to evolve the concept and modernise it a bit. Copying bits from Western games seemingly at random and at the same time taking out the bits fans actually like about the game… it’s like someone other than Square Enix is making the games and it’s all part of some purposeful sabotage. I give up.Karl Turbo

From fan to hater
I very recently gave up on a franchise I used to love, the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I was so pumped for Assassin’s Creed III at one point I honestly thought it was going to be the best game ever made, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Whilst it is still a very good game, I just loathe it because of all the broken promises and unfulfilled hyped. With Assassin’s Creed IV having been announced I have little interest, it doesn’t help that I hated the naval combat in III and IV seems to be so focused around it. I went from being a huge Assassin’s Creed fanboy to literally not caring about the series anymore.Rory Mellon

Didn’t catch ‘em all
I would have never believed it when I was younger but for me Pokémon Black/White 2 was the final straw for me. It’s a shame because X/Y does look very good but unless it’s something truly amazing I just feel completely burned out on the whole series now. I don’t know what they were thinking with those two sequels: they were completely unnecessary, they didn’t add anything new, and they dragged out the life of the DS when the 3DS was in real need of help.

To be honest though a lot of Nintendo franchises are in a state of flux at the moment. Things like Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Fire Emblem Awakening shows they can still make top notch sequels but I’m going to need really convincing that Super Mario and Zelda aren’t just being thrown out as soon as possible to help the Wii U before I dive in.Iron Pants

Drifting behind
Back in the early years of the PlayStation I couldn’t get enough of Gran Turismo. I put hundreds of hours into the first couple of games in the series, starting with low powered cars, working hard to earn the credits to upgrade them to a competitive level and striving to achieve all gold medals on the licences.

As the series continued the games just seemed to lose their sparkle and introduced more and more stuff that I wasn’t interested in. Arcade mode became increasingly pointless, endurance races got longer and the introduction of B-Spec mode was just bonkers.

Another problem was, that after being so far ahead of the technological curve at the start of the series the games have been caught up and overtaken by other racing games on a range of platforms. In particular the collision dynamics and artificial intelligence of the opponents are barely improved over what they were in the first version of the game 16 years ago.

The amount of content in the games has increased over the years, but again it just doesn’t seem to hold that much interest for me. There are lots more tracks now, but the earlier fictional tracks were just that bit more fun than their real world siblings, but it’s the real world tracks that have had the most attention in the recent games.

Also, the race structure and competitions now completely lack challenge and it’s just become a quest to unlock the best cars. Long gone are the days of taking a hatchback Civic or a Mitsubishi GTO and squeezing every ounce of performance out of it to come up with something that was competitive in a wide range of races.

I’ve continued to buy every game in the series, but have played each one less and less. I’ve barely played Gran Turismo 5 though and haven’t even looked at the downloadable content. If anyone had told me 16 years ago that in the years to come there’d be more Gran Turismo content than I could ever need, but I couldn’t be bothered to play it then I wouldn’t have believed them.

Come on Yamauchi-san, let’s see if you can get the series back on track (no-pun intended) for Gran Turismo 6Stever (PSN ID)/b0bb1ns (Nintendo ID/Steam ID)

In Soviet Russia video games abandon you
I’m not sure I’ve ever really abandoned any game franchises. Star Wars: Battlefront abandoned me though. Actually I feel like all of Star Wars has abandoned me!ZOMBIE_JAY (PSN ID)

American influence
I was going to say Mario Kart (no matter how good they are it’s essentially been the same game seven times now, just on a different format) but then it struck me. The answer to this has to be Final Fantasy. Now it might be that Final Fantasy has fallen from grace just as first person shooters have become the biggest deals, but Square Enix need to have a long hard look at themselves over this.

As their recent financial results have shown, Square Enix are doing well in Europe and relatively well in Japan. In America though they are falling well behind what they expected, though what they actually did expect is anyone’s guess. As far as I can tell their games sold pretty much in-line with similar, just below AAA games. But their big problem with Final Fantasy hasn’t been not focusing on American tastes too much, it’s the exact opposite. To the detriment of their long term fans Square Enix made Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels to appeal to American teenagers.

And fair enough if that’s who you want to target, it’s your business. But everyone who bought the previous games did so for the open nature of the games/gameplay and the deep characters. Replacing those with a game that is just a corridor for a large part of the game and characters who are even more surly and angry. Yes, these things may appeal to a thirteen year-old boy in Texas but he’ll be too busy abusing someone on Call Of Duty to care. In the meantime everyone else will be bored to tears.

They could have learned lessons and gone back to more traditional ideas for the sequels. You might not have sold as many copies but at least you wouldn’t have alienated your fanbase. Why Final Fantasy really needs a rethink though is that it lead to the perception Japanese role-playing games are dead. Sorry Square Enix but no, they’re not. Persona 4 Golden and Ni No Kuni are both great games and have sold well. Atlus and Nippon Ichi have secured solid niche markets for themselves.

Square’s idea to turn the series around is endless remakes of the earlier games. Well, why not be proactive and see why those games were great: the story, the gameplay, the characters and seminal villains. Kefka and Sephiroth are both iconic, could anyone name the last three villains?

If Final Fantasy is to survive then learning from the past is crucial. If Square Enix is in trouble then perhaps they should bet the farm and make the game the designers, not the focus testers want. Any series can be great again if it just takes a risk, and surly that’s better than continuing to play for diminishing returns?andy_b720 (PSN ID)

Downward spiral
Resident Evil was always my favourite series of games on PS one and PlayStation 2, from the original up to Code: Veronica X, and of course 4 but played that on GameCube. All the games were fun to play, with a good mix of puzzles, action and memorable unnerving moments.

Still to this day I think the most effective scene in any horror game was unlocking the backdoor to the mansion, when the video of the Hunter running to the door started. Resident Evil 5 was a huge let down, and the only moment that’s stuck with me was when on the boat thinking ‘so that guy just turned into a squid!?’ Still not picked up 6, and in no great hurry.VoodooJamie (gamertag)

The three amigos
There are three titles which I think they should rest for now: the Assassin’s Creed series, the Resident Evil series, and Final Fantasy series. Mostly this is because of not doing the very thing which I loved about them in the first place, apart from Assassin’s Creed which seems to only modify the gameplay, which I see for the most recent games a little bit more all the time.

The problem with Assassin’s Creed is mainly the yearly releases, ironically they are still good playable games but can we calm a bit down with them as they don’t feel as special as they could be. I got to admit I am looking forward to the pirate themed Black Flag, which does seem to push the game into an unfamiliar territory, but I think we still have been too spoilt by them which is a plus compared to the other two game series I mentioned.

Final Fantasy and all its XIII sequels are just killing the franchise, not like Resi style, just turning it into a game which isn’t standing apart from the usual Japanese role-playing norms. Why can’t current and next gen games have the great technical enhancements but with the traditional elements from VII to IX’s format, which is really what I crave for again and hold out for most. Though I did enjoy Final Fantasy X too, just kept some of the past, but this is where it changed mostly, despite XII being a great version also.

The more I think about Resident Evil, the more angry I become, this game ranks amongst the top most series to either stop or seriously get back to its roots, or I will just ignore it. I like third person shooters, I loved Resident Evil 4 and I’m OK with 5, but 6 is where I draw the line. I felt as though I was playing it just for the advancement of the storyline. I was never scared, the frantic nature of 4 and to a degree 5’s just was not felt in 6, and tension was barely there.

No, I have to get my scares from elsewhere now. Year Walk is more atmospheric than Resident Evil 6 and that’s a cheap iOS game, but the tension building was excellent. Where I found that I was a bit nervous was the completing of a puzzle, as I knew something was going to happen. Two to three hours of unsettling gameplay compared to about thirteen, fifteen or more hours (depending on how quick you are), just for an occasional umm, jump, well more like an eyebrow raise before moving on. I did enjoy the game but for different reasons, but to me that’s not the point.

Please can the next generation of consoles create a mansion or city so scary, that I fear to turn the console on.Alucard